


A Glimpse of Diana en Route to Sonoma (Conquer, Explore, Greece, Weep, Water, Fights)

by Burnadette_dpdl



Category: Interview With the Vampire (1994), Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 04:51:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2011539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burnadette_dpdl/pseuds/Burnadette_dpdl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis and Gabrielle share a kill on their way into the Sonoma compound. Takes place during Queen of the Damned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Glimpse of Diana en Route to Sonoma (Conquer, Explore, Greece, Weep, Water, Fights)

**Author's Note:**

> All 6 prompts used, went a little over. Inspired by cloudsinvenice (tumblr), to consider the Sonoma Compound time… and encouraged by the some -laviniaspeaks! - to continue w/ my feels on Gabrielle… And also, from Louis' POV, bc, LOUIS. 
> 
> This could lead to more Gabrielle/Louis. I tagged it with L/L bc it's mentioned, but it's not the /present/ tense of this piece.

I trudge some distance behind her, admitting only to myself that I am beyond weary. Exploring this new realm of exhaustion, I struggle to keep pace with Gabrielle in her natural element.

She had offered me her wrist more than once, I had politely refused it as many times. I couldn't bear the prospect of her stamina waning in the slightest. The quiet forest had provided us a few small animals, but they were of precious little sustenance, and we both thirsted.

My head swims heavily with punishing thoughts, corrosive self-recriminations, and the intense thirst. I deserve it. Reason slips. My monstrous senses sharpen. Even flying prey, which I had never attempted before, seems to be a real a possibility should I choose to give my body the chance to go after an owl I spot on a low branch. My limbs feel lose, elastic, and I have been licking my lips raw.

Gabrielle breaks through this fog with the pressure of her fingers on the sides of my face, saying something in French about my “tank being far below 'E'.” Her hold is both restrictive and comforting, and this, combined with her concerned expression, silences me in its uncanny resemblance to a Lestat of centuries ago who had begged me to kill properly.

Now eye-to-eye, she tells me, “Don’t crack up on me, Pointe du Lac.” As stern as Lestat. “You can’t think clearly like this,” she says, again echoing his words. I could succumb to the desire to weep, so real is the sensation that it is actually Lestat holding me transfixed. “I need you firing on all cylinders, understand? Wait here.” Releasing me to sway precariously on my feet, she moves some distance away, concentrates, mentally searching.

I am not aware of the time passing until I see the dark shape of a deer trotting towards us, on a trajectory to move right between and past us, like a ghost train.

She lures it towards herself, the moonlight icing the two slender silhouettes. In this backlit ethereal scene, she is truly the Greek's Diana in tattered canvas. The doe is tentative but obeys her, fighting an inner instinct to run. The goddess speaks without words, one glowing hand held aloft, palm up, in a gesture of serenity. Gabrielle typically prefers the mutual exertion of the chase, climaxing in an aggressive kill. This passive method is a gift to me, so as not to taint the blood with the adrenaline of fear.

As she embraces the submissive creature, her hands on the smooth flank of its neck, she beckons to me, and I approach in slow, measured steps. The seductive glint in her eye is the same as Lestat’s when he beckoned me to my first human kills. When he beckoned me to his bed. The resemblance again jarring and alluring. It conquers me now as it did then.

We both take the animal at the same time, on either side of its neck, sinking to our knees gratefully as it weakens. Soothing to massage my fingers into the large plane of muscled neck as we drink what we must have. The doe smells of the woods, dirt, a wholesome musk of natural oils and fresh spring water. Drinking in relief to my body and mind, grateful for the sensitivity returning to the tips of my fingers and toes in waves.

I feel her hand on the back of my own, and would have pulled away, but her fingers twine into mine and instinctively, I enclose her touch. Does she know that I had often held Lestat’s hand like this? As he dozed lightly against my chest, our fingers woven together in the permeating darkness of a bed with the drapes drawn shut.

I caress her smooth skin with my free thumb and let myself pretend, for a moment, that it is Lestat's hand once again.


End file.
